


The Threat of Reality

by Chromat1cs



Series: Basingstoke Diaries [9]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angry Sex, Editor!Remus, Explicit Sexual Content, I could never let them stay angry at each other, M/M, Mechanic!Sirius, Ministry of Magic, Politics, Post Hogwarts AU, but they make up I promise, could you imagine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-16 17:53:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11833938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chromat1cs/pseuds/Chromat1cs
Summary: When the past starts rearing up again with an unexpected interloper, bringing along the subsequent ripples of doubt and fear, Sirius isn’t sure if he can stand to have to brave it all again after only half a decade of quiet.





	The Threat of Reality

Remus laughs with bright abandon, and it makes the room burn brighter like a signal flare of loveliness. Crammed shoulder-to-shoulder in a packed pub in April, there's a very important 1984 cup qualifier Quidditch match racketing out from the television set at the end of the bar that Sirius has a difficult time paying attention to as Remus grins at him through a draining draught of Dragon Barrel.

"Come off it, you were a terrible Chaser, Pads," Remus says over the dull roar of cheering wizards and witches around them, glancing once over his shoulder toward the single CRT box when a collective groan rises. Sirius gestures with his pint glass, scoffing at the colorful little zipping movements across the screen. 

"I was better than that, come _onnnn_ , Trestlegrim! HIT IT!" Sirius' voice rises to a shout, rallying a fairly drunken chorus of agreement from a cluster of older wizards to his right. He raises his ale to them in camaraderie before turning back to Remus and sipping from it. "If you’ve cursed this match I don't think I can go on like this anymore," he jokes, his eyes flickering in silent jest between the rings on their fingers. Remus snorts; earlier, he’d reassured Sirius with a halfhearted _I think they’ll do fine, they were sort of alright last season._

"If Hollyhead loses, I'll let you mope for a week without comment."

"Make it two and I might be able to stick around for a bit yet," Sirius hums with oily drama, sharing the mischievous shine in Remus' eyes as they both turn back to the game eagerly. The presence of a television set at their favorite pub—a Muggle find from a junkyard charmed back to functioning and receiving wizarding channels as the owner explained it, and the only one in this area beyond London—is a godsend for a semifinal match. _This place is going to make a bloody killing tonight._

Remus had been the one to suggest a foray out of the flat for the game, delivering the one-two hit of one, the pub now having the novelty of a television instead of just radio, and two, surefire avoidance of a downstairs neighbor complaining of Sirius' loud reactions to the broadcast as if he were really in the stands. 

_Can't help it, Moony,_ Sirius had insisted last month after a qualifier round went well and Remus was shutting the door after apologizing pointedly the woman in the unit below them, _the spirit of the game rises in me!_

_The 'spirit' of Mrs. Dacus is going rise up and evict us if you aren't careful, love._

_She probably has her own fair share of questionable quirks. What do you think it could be, a drugs opperation? Sex dungeon?_

_Sirius, she's seventy-two years old._

_Exactly; think of all that experience she must have with her—_

_NO, no, you barmy fucker, no, I will not,_ Remus had protested spasmodically, but Sirius had seen the laughter suppressed in his cheeks as he set to finishing the bread he was preparing. 

Now, standing in the crush of bodies to watch as Hollyhead tries its best not to choke just before seasonal invitational finals, Sirius tries not to dig his fingers into Remus’ arm too hard as a Beater shoots across the television screen, and the pub roars with doldrums again with another goal lost. Sirius’ gut tightens as he adds a sarcastic shout to the collective scorn of voices. He raises his arm for another pint, doubles it when Remus nods at him and waggles his empty glass in hand.

Forty-five minutes later and another three pints in, Remus is skirting just barely tipsy and Sirius is still far from even feeling tingly. Hollyhead is sure to lose, even if they manage to find the snitch at this point. With a look between them, both men both agree to head home. Lightweight jackets dawned, shouldering open the door, Sirius can't help but wince when the pub groans in agony _again_ for a drop in the bucket of their depressing dearth of points. 

"Let's walk back," Remus suggests, patting Sirius' shoulder sweetly, "release the steam and all that."

Sirius glowers down at his feet as they walk, despite knowing after so many years of hopeless devotion to this fucking team that the pain is temporary. Terribly repetitive, yes, but temporary. But he likes wallowing, especially over sports. Remus doesn't quite understand letting it cut so deep. It gives Sirius an extra excuse to vent his penchant for needless dramatics without too much eye-rolling from his better half. 

"They'll do better next season?" Remus hazards as the sounds of their footsteps bump through the dark and off the high crawl of buildings. They're about twenty minutes out on foot, and Remus is right; it's a lovely night to just walk. 

"Only if they reorder their entire roster," Sirius sighs. "Hollyhead's filled to bursting with older players who draw a crowd but can't actually play up to the right speed anymore. Game's changing, they're not."

"Should I worry you'll go try out for the open draft then, O Wise One?"

"Sod off," Sirius says, smiling to himself despite the glumness, "I'd be knocked off a broom in less than five minutes in that skill pool—“

"Pardon, lads, spare a knut?"

Sirius immediately puts his right hand to Remus' lower back, hackles raising in bristled protectiveness as a dingy-robed figure moves out from the alley to their left. Sirius twitches his left wrist, freeing his wand to slide down his coat sleeve in a readied, secretive hold.

"Sorry, mate, just lost all I had with me on a bungled Harpies bet," Sirius says, voice raised unconsciously in warded warning. Out of the shadowed alley, the man looks hollow. Haggard, stooped, Sirius can only discern the sharp planes of an angry-looking face beneath mussed hair that looks as if it's been slept on for ages. He stays standing in the center of the sidewalk, unmoving like some sort of cloak-wrapped tree stump, and Sirius tightens his fingers against the fabric of Remus' jacket to keep them standing their ground. He hears Remus consciously reigning his breathing in evenly as they watch the man.

"You alright?" Remus asks steadily. 

"I need a knut, one more for powder back to the city Floo back home," the man says, watching them like a hawk. "Sleepwalked all the way out here, far cry from London."

"Where you from then, just outside or in the city proper?" Remus is the picture of trained calm, his voice casual and his stance neutral, but Sirius can feel Remus' muscles tightened to move in his core from his back. 

"City proper," the man barks, and Sirius flinches at the wild burst of sound. "Live in the spare room," the man continues, voice softer again. "Hidin' out in the guest bed, stuffed under a cloak most of the time. Except when I wander out sometimes. Like now. Need a knut, lads."

The man takes a step forward and Sirius instinctively and smoothly moves in front of Remus in a shielding step of his own. "Sorry, mate," he repeats, a wash of adrenaline surging through him in a rush. "Just like I told you, lost it all betting on Hollyhead. Gotta find a more consistent team to follow, eh?" He hazards a genial chuckle. The man doesn't respond, only steps forward once more.

In a flash, Sirius has his wand drawn and pointed. The man has stepped into the slice of light from a streetlamp, and Sirius hears Remus' breath catch nearly inaudibly at his ear. 

"That's fucking Barty Crouch," Remus whispers, the sound of it just barely discernible over a passing breeze. Sirius says nothing, continues staring the vagrant down in steely silence, but inside his head his brain lights up with panicked questions. _What the fuck?! That rat bastard is in Azkaban, DIED in Azkaban, what?! Sleepwalks? What the everloving shit is this?_

"That's a pointy threat," the man muses darkly, staring down Sirius' wand with the slightest smirk creeping across his face— _fucking hellfire shit,_ that’s absolutely Barty Crouch. Sirius could have recognized that sideways crawl of a grin anywhere. He remembers the sniveling wart of a boy two years his junior at school; remembers hating him and pranking him and being slightly afraid of his infamous instability all at once. Perhaps Crouch hadn't recognized them yet—Sirius’ hair hadn't been so long then, Remus has filled out and gone through several different haircuts of his own in the last seven years. He grips his wand tighter. 

"It's a sure one too, so don't even think of coming any closer," he warns, voice low and feral. 

"Isn't that _fun.”_ Crouch hisses, his eyes alight with wild madness, "You look so angry! I haven't seen that face on somebody since I used to show poor sods this pretty slice of history..."

Sirius knows with a knot in his gut what he's about to see as Crouch yanks his sleeve up, revealing an ugly patch of fading ink on the inside of his forearm in the undeniable shape of a Dark Mark. Sirius hears the sharp intake of breath that Remus draws through his nose and bites back a wave of hideous memories filled with grief and pain.

"He's coming back, you know," Crouch murmurs, staring down at his arm with twisted tenderness. "The Dark Lord is boiling under the surface of the world and will return someday, someday very soon, all set to finish what He started."

Sirius can feel his heart hammering behind his ribs with the gut-wrenching desire to flee, but he levels his wand ever straighter and continues to stare at the wastrel in front of him. He says nothing. 

“Oh, I've—cheers, I've just found some extra change in my pocket," Remus says from over his shoulder, voice over-clear like polished opal through the muddle of mounting panic. "Two knuts. Still need them, mate?"

Crouch looks up at the two of them, eyes darting like a rabid hare. "Give it here," he says airily, open hand extended with the dark mark showing as if it were an open wound. Remus moves out from behind Sirius' shoulder, his own wand held at the ready tucked under his wrist surreptitiously by his leg where Sirius can just barely glimpse it. Sirius grinds his teeth and readies every disarming spell his knows behind his tongue to use if Crouch so much as twitches wrong.

"Get yourself home safe, yeah?" Remus said gently, dropping the two coins into Crouch's shaky palm with a muted clink. "Way back to London can be thorny at night."

As Remus backs away from him to stand beside Sirius again, Crouch rasps a dry, rattling laugh that makes Sirius' skin crawl. "There are so many things that are worse at night.”

When the bedraggled man turns and shuffles off toward the Top of Town, Sirius leaves his wand pointed at the ready with a stiffened, trembling arm until he’s sure Crouch has left for good.

“He was under an Imperius curse,” Remus breathes after several more beats of silence between them, still staring into the middle distance where Crouch’s figure seeped into the shadows.

"He should be under fucking lock and soul-sucking key in the middle of the North Sea," Sirius growls, and the distilled hate in his voice almost surprises him.

They're both silent for another moment, Remus with his lips drawn tight and Sirius with his wand still pointing with listless, threatening accuracy. Sirius can feel the air crackling with reservation, more than sure that Remus is turning the twisted prophecy of _He's coming back, you know_ over and over in his head as well.

"Let's go home," Remus suggests pointedly, taking Sirius by the arm and drawing his wand. Sirius doesn't object as the night cracks around him in a thin little whipping rush, dragging a jettison of wind along his ears before he feels himself deposited back in the center of their living room. Remus stays standing where he lands as they both remove their jackets. 

"Thought for once we could have a very calm evening out," Remus says gently, and Sirius feels a corner of his heart crack at the slightest sigh that lines those words.

“We could do something tomorrow?” he hazards, toeing off his shoes.

"We have to report this tomorrow, Sirius, we’ll spend all afternoon filling out fucking paperwork in London!" Remus takes a stilling breath to quell his raised voice, closing his eyes briefly. "I'm sorry. I just wanted a nice weekend of nothing."

"I hate to be the cynic here, but nobody is going to believe us, Moony," Sirius says, meeting his eyes with careful tenderness. "They had a funeral, the Prophet had a front page spread of it, so if that really was Crouch then he and whoever is helping him did a fine job of faking all the pomp of death."

"Even so," Remus insists, "if he's right about...the whole mess starting again, _‘coming back,'_ then somebody needs to know."

Sirius lets a dry bark of laughter leap out of him before he can catch it. "You really think Bagnold wouldn't just sweep the idea of Death Eaters coming back under the rug if that got into the Ministry right now? Her term has been built on hocking the liberty that bitch feels like she's won and ignoring all the death that came with it."

"At least she was at Crouch's trial, Sirius, she would know—”

"What proof do we have beyond our own eyes, a pair of half-inebriated sods who were confused by a homeless wizard addled by overused brain charms, covered in old robes?" Sirius holds Remus' look with what feels like hardened depth, an exacting edge of logic he rarely has to use anymore. "I know what they'll roar back with, Remus. Growing up in a house full of deniers on the other end of that spectrum taught me well." He hates the bitterness he can feel heavy on his tongue. The stutter behind Remus' eyes tells him he's right, no matter how violently it twists his insides.

Remus remains quiet as he shakes his head and tosses his jacket over a kitchen chair, where he stays standing as if he had forgotten what he walked into the room to do. 

"Is this whole cycle of shit really starting again, Sirius?" He finally asks in a soft voice. "Did we only get three years of peace?"

Sirius moves to Remus in four quick steps before embracing him, warm and fully, smelling the scent of night and the dregs of the pub in his collar.

"This is a fluke," Sirius murmurs, so sturdily he almost believes it himself. "One batty bastard with a fading tattoo doesn't mean anything. Don't worry." He knows Remus can probably feel the immediacy of his heartbeat in his chest, thundering at odds with the trained evenness in his voice. He feels Remus sigh lightly against his shoulder. 

"I'm only going to agree with you because I don't want to spend my Saturday in a Ministry office," he mumbles. A blessed and automatic smile twitches onto Sirius' mouth as he draws back and brushes back an crop of hair from Remus' forehead. 

“It'll be alright, love," he says softly, even though they both hear it for its truth as a single bandage overtop of the open laceration of society. 

"I'll be the judge of that in the morning," Remus sighs, kissing Sirius squarely at the corner of his mouth and moving off toward the bedroom. 

“I’ll be the judge of your bollocks in the morning,” Sirius replies, wanting selfishly to enjoy even just a little bit of uninhibited silliness before sleep. Blessedly, Remus laughs from ahead of him— _summer wind amid all this confusion, sweeps it away like a sigh—_ just as Sirius had hoped.

—

Two weeks later, a slow Saturday greets Sirius on the other end of waking. He stretches with a long and airy groan when his eyes shutter open in the just-past-eight light. Remus is up already, predictably restless for the past couple of days, and Sirius can hear the radio muttering with a chipper witch’s voice muffled from beyond the shut door. He huffs himself into a sit, cards his hair back off of his forehead and directs it over one shoulder as he yawns widely, and shrugs into his dressing gown to head into the sitting room.

_“…of which the local Auror division has reported only the most basic information, insisting that, quote, ‘one instance of petty insurgence is just that—petty. We implore the public not to worry, as the matter is being handle summarily.’ Lead Auror Alastor Moody was unavailable for comment.”_

“More Secrecy breaches?” Sirius hums, plodding over to Remus intent on spiriting away one of the scones steaming merrily on the plate in front of him. “Those uppity little students always have to learn the hard way, I remember when James and Pete once—”

“Surrey,” Remus interrupts dryly. With breakfast halfway to his mouth, Sirius stops in confusion and looks up at Remus. The moon is two days away, and it’s evident in the set of his jaw and the way his eyes tip down slightly at their edges from a dry well of mirth. 

“Sorry?”

_“Surrey,”_ Remus repeats, sipping tightly from his mug of tea. “They found vandals hexing Dark Marks into building sides in Surrey.”

“Did the report mention whether or not these ‘vandals’ were wearing Death Eater masks and hooded cloaks? Because if they’re just kids being shits, I wouldn't worry.” Sirius kisses Remus on the temple and pours his own cup of tea, charming the water hot around the pouch of English breakfast.

“I still feel like we should report coming across Crouch to the Ministry,” Remus mutters, and Sirius feels his brow tighten.

“Why? We talked about this the other week—”

“Because it’s making me fucking anxious, Sirius, can you allow me this stupid little grace at the end of a gibbous?” Remus snaps, and Sirius draws his lips tight to hold in a retort. After a second of conciliatory silence, Remus sighs. “Sorry.”

“Surrey,” Sirius mutters, coaxing a hint of a smile out Remus alongside his own quirked smirk. “We can go tomorrow, alright? I want today with you.”

“What for?” Remus asks as he sniffs an amused little puff of laughter.

“Anything,” Sirius drawls, circling Remus once in mock appraisal before planting another kiss on his forehead. “My glorious company, my raucous wit, my gorgeous body, my expert tongue…?” Sirius ignores the way his belly gutters with worry, scrambling to wipe away the feeling with stupid inanities. It usually works; he refuses to let now be any different.

Remus laughs fully and Sirius takes great pride in the ringing sound, sipping his tea where he stands through a triumphant smile. Remus draws a hand down his face and sighs as if he were loosing a flock of birds lifting a measure of his preoccupation away with them. “I will never understand how you can stomach dirty jokes before ten in the morning,” he sighs.

Sirius lifts his eyebrows, leveling a look at Remus in dramatic surprise. _“Ten_ in the morning? Well now, Moony, here I thought you were strictly a noontime man.”

“Oh, I could be persuaded,” Remus hums, stepping closer with his soft smile curving his cheeks in a beautiful way Sirius hadn’t seen in two days. “You’ll just have to come up with better jokes.”

—

As the Ministry floo rushes in around them, Sirius feels summarily caged by the dull roar of train station-like bustle as employees beeline around the main entry like ants on separate missions. He wonders for the thousandth time, as he follows Remus' own purposeful and immediate trot, how James keeps from ripping it all to the ground out of sheer madness after spending hours upon hours in his clerk office every week. 

Remus stops in front of a kiosk in the middle of the hall with a throng of turnstiles fanning out from its side, no doubt heavily enchanted to keep out those who would want in for all the wrong reasons. Sirius can smell the warding runes seared invisibly into their surface like molten iron, and he inwardly thanks the greed of policymakers to not waste the resources on knitting in additional wards to keep out "savage" Dark Creatures with "such heightened intricacies”—their words from the Prophet, not his. Remus had laughed at them three years ago, read them aloud, nearly pinned them to the refrigerator then.

"Welcome to the Ministry of Magic," the witch behind the kiosk says, her voice flat and bored as it twists through an amplifying cone in pinched pitch. 

"Hallo, I'd like to speak to one of the clerks in the office of the Advisor to the Minister," Remus says promptly. 

"His office doesn't take audience," the woman replies, the cone braying in a tone that almost make Sirius wince. "The closest civilians are allowed audience without a warrant is the office of the Junior Assistant to the Minister. Level two."

"That works fine then," Remus says gruffly, impatience eating at his disposition like acid. _We should have put this off until after the moon—_ Sirius forces his brows not to knit with concern, but a Moony with his mind set to anything is a Moony who won't negotiate until it's seen through. 

The kiosk witch passes two slips of parchment through a gap in the glass in front of her as another metal compartment clunks open beneath it. "I'll have to check your wands here," she drones. 

Sirius and Remus pull their wands from their sleeves and slide them into the kiosk, Remus' minor scowl unchanging. The woman loops numbered tags around each handle on her side of the glass and slides them into a drawer. 

"Keep those lift tickets with you," she explains as if she were reading off instructions to re-alphabetize the Magical Law library, "they'll be your claim tickets to get your wands back when you exit on the other end there." She jerks her thumb over her shoulder with summative blandness before waving her own wand in a complex little pattern. "You can pass through to the lifts now, best regards."

As the two men push their way through a pair of turnstiles, Sirius catches Remus' eye. "A cheery lot they have here," he mutters, which unfortunately doesn't even make Remus snort with Sirius' favorite brand of sarcasm. He swallows the urge to add levity to anything else as they approach a massive hall of lifts fairly choked with people. They wend themselves into a cluster of officials that funnel into the next open slide of doors when it arrives. 

Sirius allows himself the grounding of hooking his index finger through Remus' belt loop surreptitiously from their place at the back of the lift, stuffed behind robed clerks and officers. Remus barely glances at him when he feels the tug, but Sirius sees a brief, blessed flicker of sympathy and affection in the split second it allows. He grits his teeth as if he was trying to crush diamonds and tries to focus on the task at hand instead of the reality of Another Fucking Lift. 

They only have to go one level down, but it still feels like far too long of a ride for Sirius' sheared nerves. _"Level two, Department of Magical Law Enforcement, including the Improper Use of Magic Office, Auror Headquarters, and Wizengamot Administration Services,"_ the lift's voice purrs, and Sirius draws his hand back to himself and follows the wake of Remus shouldering his way gently to the doors before they open on the level two bank. 

"We're looking for the Junior Assistant's offices, should be here somewhere," Remus says shortly, not stopping outside the lift to even collect bearings before he starts to the left in immediate search for somebody who might be able to lend the right ear to his preoccupation. Sirius remains dutifully silent as they peruse the ranks of heavy doors and plaques for a good five minutes, Remus' mounting tension painfully evident to all of Sirius' better instincts, and so soon Sirius takes it upon himself to split off a bit and ask around to actual clerks.

An older man in a well-tailored Auror's uniform is the only one of much help, pointing over Sirius' shoulder to a tiny windowed office back towards the lifts. "You'll want the Submissions clerk," he explains, "you can't gain proper audience with any higher offices unless you're cleared there first."

"Thank you so much, sir, much appreciated," Sirius says quickly. The man's eyes crinkle with a smile. 

"Don't get many civilians reporting anything of substance lately, they might be glad for something to do!" He guffaws to himself as he walks away, and Sirius ignores the twist in his guts that makes him hope their report holds just as little sway as the officer assumes; makes him hope somebody can assure then they aren't insane for fearing the worst. He whisks off to return to Remus in a flurry of grating feelings.

"One of the officials pointed me in the right direction, back toward the lift to Submissions," Sirius says as he rounds on Remus, who might as well have a tail to lash back and forth for the intensity with which he's been stalking about looking for signs. 

"This place is organized like somebody threw all the pieces into a pile and scrambled the bricks around on a blueprint," Remus growls, and Sirius catches his wrist subtilely before he turns to storm toward the submissions office. Sirius can feel the barely-reigned instinct in Remus to snarl at the hold, his eyes sparking with fury. 

_"What,"_ Remus spits. 

"You know better than I that you need to calm yourself before you go in there," Sirius murmurs with low warning. "I don't want to bail you out of some half-day jail cell for something as preventable as you being a minge, alright?" He hates every word passing through his lips, but nothing gets through to Remus this close to a full moon besides unadorned truth. 

Remus seethes for a silent second, glaring at Sirius, before ripping his hand back to himself. "We'll get this over with here as civilly as possible. We can fight about my proclivities at home later," he hisses, turning on his heel to move with long strides to the Submissions office. Sirius' throat burns with angry frustration as he follows the blazing trail across the domed hall. 

"Afternoon!" the small witch behind the desk chirps when Remus knocks shortly on the door and it opens on its own. "Welcome to Submissions!"

"Afternoon," Sirius replies, followed on its heels by a soft "Hallo," from Remus. They lower themselves into a pair of high-backed chairs on the visitors' side of the desk as the door swings shut, and the officer looks at them with eager expectance. 

"Can I get you anything? Tea?" she asks brightly. 

"I'm fine, thank you," Remus says tightly, and Sirius refuses as well with a simple parroted "No, thanks."

"Well then, what brings you in today?" The witch looks between the two men, chipper, her hands clasped in front of her on the spotless desktop like a neat fold of bird wings. Her dark hair is pulled back in tight curls off of her face, almond eyes bright and eager behind large horn-rimmed glasses. Sirius wonders for a moment if she maybe crossed years with them in school, she looks youngish enough. _Definitely Ravenclaw,_ peering with muted pride when a secretive glance around the room skirts over an embossed and a well-used teacup to the side of the desk decorated with an eagle flying through a blue banner. 

"We've some suspicious activity in Basingstoke around two weeks ago," Remus says, succinct, and the Submissions officer nods invitingly. Remus' hands tighten on the arm of his chair. "A potential Death Eater faction."

"Oh my," the woman says softly, and Sirius can tell immediately she isn't buying it at face value. She spells a long roll of parchment out from a filing cabinet along with a thick fountain pen that sits poised at the ready against the paper. Turning back to Remus, she fixes him with a purposeful look. "Could you give a report? From the beginning? As specifically as possible, if you please."

Remus adjusts his sit, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees in apprehensive tension. "We were leaving the wizarding pub there after the Hollyhead match, The Willow's Spur. About four, five hundred meters north of the pub, near nine o' clock it probably was according to where we left the match, a man approached us asking for a knut. He seemed out of sorts, almost drugged. When he came closer it looked like Imperius—you must remember the description of the affliction from Defense in year three as well—and then he pulled up his sleeve to reveal an old Dark Mark and said 'He's coming back, you know.' I gave him the money to keep anything from getting out of hand and he left." Remus sits back in his chair, his fingers still tense on the arms as it creaks softly. Sirius notices the ring on his left hand biting into his skin from the pressure. "Nobody fired off a spell and nobody was hurt, but I figure the Ministry needs to know. What with all the unrest in Surrey the other night."

The Submissions clerk remains quiet as the enchanted fountain pen scratches away with Remus' dictation, and she clears her throat when the pen stills—standby, like an orchestra conductor. "You said you were exiting a pub when you ran into this man?" she asks, just as chipper as when they had entered. 

Remus leans forward, his eyes bunched up at their corners in a scrutinizing look that smacks of condescension, and Sirius speaks up before he can say something genuinely hurtful in his riled state. "We'd had two pints each, far from toasted," Sirius insists. The clerk looks over at him with the same smile, if not an ounce tighter around its edges. 

"I only ask because we have reports come in a couple times a month that are merely the product of a bit too much—”

"We weren't bloody hallucinating," Remus blurts, and Sirius clenches his jaw to keep from admonishing him. _He isn't a child,_ no, of course not, but he was liable to be just as petulant as one at this time of the month. Sirius feels a smolder his bones light up in pure ire for the moon and all the havoc she wreaks yet again. 

"I'm not saying you were, sir," the clerk says evenly, "I'm just suggesting that perhaps the man was _also_ a bit beyond the bottle. You mean to tell me you came across illegal use of an Unforgivable and a former Death Eater all at once?" The blatant effort the clerk exudes to keep a disbelieving titter from escaping her mouth rubs Sirius entirely the wrong way, so it must be rankling Remus beyond imagination. Sirius lets out a slow breath through his nose and glances sideways at Remus, who has stilled where he sits. 

"I assure you, I remember exceedingly thoroughly the definition of how to identify somebody victim to Imperius," Remus says, thrumming with anger Sirius can feel from beside him. 

"'The Imperius Curse will not outwardly look like much to an observer, as the wickedness intended by the caster would be ruined by any chance to notice it at once,'" the clerk quotes immediately and crisply, "'but if the observer spends enough time around the affected citizen, one may be able to catch them in uncharacteristic swaths of lethargy, listlessness, or unresponsiveness if the caster is not attentive to their victim.'" The clerk looks at both of them in turn, an official-tinted coolness rising up behind her pleasant demeanor. "I, too, read Llewynhock when I was thirteen. I respect the fact you have your wizarding instinct to trust, but unless you mean to also tell me you'd spent a weekend holiday with the man, I refuse to officially report an Unforgivable without concrete evidence beyond two witnesses who had a bit to drink."

Remus says nothing, but a wry smile that doesn't reach his eyes in the slightest twitches onto his lips. "Miss...Simon, is it?" Remus nods hypothetically at the plaque on her desk. "Do you remember Hallow's Eve in 1981?"

Sirius feels his guts seize in a shuddering twist, but the clerk smiles brightly, her good-natured armor resumed. "Of course! Much as you and your friend two weeks ago, that night I was seeing myself to the bottom of several pints of ale in celebration. Oh, it was a lovely night, victory all 'round; I shot a fireworks charm off in the middle of King's Cross, my goodness, I used to be such a hellion."

Remus' icy smile remains on his face as the clerk titters to herself. "How good for you. I lost two friends that night. I suppose you wouldn't have known them from this low on the food chain. Frank and Alice Longbottom. I can't blame you though, I wouldn't put so much stock in this cobbled madhouse of a department to even _begin_ to know how to commemorate two people that brave." Sirius watches Remus warily, those beautiful and dangerous hands clenched around the fabric of his jumper through tightly-crossed arms. 

The clerk blanches and fumbles with the cuffs of her robes in self-conscious tidying. “I—I'm so sorry, sir, that—“

"So _please,"_ Remus bites out, holding up a sharp hand to cut off the clerk's flustered apology, "don't attempt to rebuff me with anything close to doubt, Miss Simon. I am the last person on the planet to incite hysteria, so I assure you this isn't a joke. I want something to be done about this so I don't have to see more of my friends die in their own homes." Remus leans forward to pin the small woman tightly under a burning stare. "Can I trust the Ministry to do their bloody job this time around?"

The clerk blinks quickly several times, the fountain pen still madly scribbling Remus' viciously exacting scalpel of launching anger, before she adjusts her glasses. 

"You see, sir, in order to pass through Submissions—and I assure you I sympathize _heartily_ with your preoccupation, I do, truly—but in order to pass, there must be evidence beyond witness—“

"I was there as well, does corroboration count for nothing?" Sirius asks quickly, itching to avoid an explosion from Remus that he can sense building in the other man's reigned breathing and taught seat. 

"I'm so sorry, sir, but—for instance, if you had been able to bring the vagrant man in with you—“

"This is unbelievable!" Remus suddenly shouts, pushing himself into a stand and jabbing his finger at the clerk with furious accusation as his chair scrapes with a violent threat near tipping across the parquet floor. "I debated coming here for two solid weeks because I wasn't sure if you lot would do anything to help, and I was right! Your bureaucracy has been nothing but a thorn in my side since the moment I walked into your building, it's impossible to gain audience with anywhere _close_ to the people who need to hear it, and your unwillingness to learn from past mistakes is absolutely abhorrent." Remus’ blind fury is uniquely his, identifiable as the angriest degree for the perfect articulation with which he enumerates every single one of his pains. "If this turns out to honestly be the start of something terrible, I hope you don't choke on your own guilt when you think back to this afternoon." He takes several stilling breaths, his hands trembling with rage. The clerk has gone pale, and even the fountain pen has forgotten to write down Remus' short tirade. "Good day, Miss Simon. I would apologize more thoroughly for my anger, but I really can't be bothered with nicety today."

Without another word, Remus bangs out of the office. Sirius feels like the floor is falling out from beneath him as he stands up as well, making sure not to rake his own chair backwards with too much noise. "I'm so sorry," he stammers, "he's had a truly awful week, and—"

"Thank you, sir," the clerk interrupts with a slightly raised voice, turning to stuff the dictation parchment back into her desk and needlessly straighten several bits and bobs at the edges of her massive desk. "I think our audience here is finished."

The clerk doesn't look up again, but he sees a shiny, pinkish rime of building tears barely hidden by the angle of her face and the reflection of her spectacle lenses. He sighs lightly to himself, disappointed with Remus and just as angry at the Ministry in the same breath. "I'm sorry," he repeats. 

_"Thank you,_ sir," the clerk insists, gesturing to the door, and Sirius exits without needing another suggestion.

His footsteps ring heavily as he trudges back to the lifts, Remus already gone and probably on his way to Floo home for his furious exit from the Submissions office. Sirius steels himself for having to ride the lift alone, but his innards can't quite find it in him to tear a larger measure of worry away from Remus' wellbeing to focus on himself.

As the next upward lift arrives there are only two other officials on board, but Sirius tucks himself back into the same back corner of the machine nonetheless. He must look a proper mess—long dark hair, leather jacket, hands stuffed in pockets, cleaved scowl—and hopes with the fibers of all his aimless discomfort that neither of the wizards in front of him are grumbling about him in the backs of their minds. When the lift glides to a stop at the main level, Sirius exits as if the back wall of the carriage is on fire. Looking toward the exit, he's marginally surprised to see Remus waiting just inside the massive entryway.

Sirius clamors to retrieve his wand from the witch at the kiosk and shoves through the turnstile, not slowing his rush until he reaches Remus. Before he can open his mouth, Remus looks over at him with a flaming stare. 

"Let's go," he says immediately, and Sirius quashes his pride to preserve the argument welling inside him until the cross the threshold to their own private right to shout at one another without drawing attention. 

"After you," he murmurs with careful evenness, and as Remus stalks ahead to the central Floo chamber with a low oath, Sirius can sense the echoing guarantee of a fucking horrible exchange brewing in the air between them.

—

Arriving back at the flat is a silent hurricane of aimless anger, frustration, frustratingly-nameless pity, and a full bout of roiling guts. Sirius sheds his jacket to throw it over the sofa back as Remus crashes into the kitchen to set the kettle to boil. As Remus slams through the cabinets and the refrigerator to prepare the noisiest cup of tea this end of the Atlantic, Sirius sighs. 

"Remus, let's talk about this," he says carefully. Remus throws a drawer shut and rounds on him, fury making the muscle in his jaw feather with tension. 

"Let's," he spits. "Let's talk about how this entire society is starting to crumble again right in front of us, let's hash this one out. What have you got then, Black?"

"We should have waited until after the moon," Sirius snarls immediately, feeling a spark in his belly on the dormant vein of genetic ire permanently smelted into his system no matter how hard he ignores it most days. He fucking hates it when Remus calls him by his last name. "We could have plied some patience and maybe gotten to another office if you hadn't been so worked up."

"So it's _my_ fault the Ministry is filled with a load of look-the-other-way idiots, is it?" Remus coughs a mirthless laugh and rakes a hand through his hair. "Jesus, Sirius, it was hard enough keeping it in that it was Crouch! I _know_ it was Crouch," he asserts suddenly, pointing a rueful finger when Sirius draws breath. Sirius feels a sneer curl his lip as he balls his fists. 

"It _was,_ Remus, I was there too! Don't fucking presume what I'm saying! I'm not arguing that the Ministry isn't shit—they could hardly do their job four years ago, they can hardly do it now. I'm saying we might have taken some more time with this and put it through the proper channels. It would have taken longer, but we c—”

"Proper channels?!" Remus cries, the kettle forgotten as it comes to a boil and starts to scream behind them on the counter. "Since when have you _ever_ cared about 'proper channels?' You didn't even want to report this! This was my fucking idea, why are you upset about this?!"

"Because _you're_ upset!" Sirius roars, turning on his heel to keep facing Remus as he scoffs and slams the stovetop off before storming into the living room. The whistling steam dies down limply as Sirius follows the angry flight to the center of the carpet. "Is it still so fucking difficult for you to understand that it hurts me to see you like this?"

"Yes!" Remus whirls to Sirius in front of the fireplace, and the wild depth of pain in his eyes lances Sirius with a ragged stab as he holds his ground. "Have you ever had to try convincing the instinct that comes with a fucking curse that a ring and a promise means _anything?_ Every. Fucking. MONTH, I have to reassure myself that you aren't lying to me. EVERY month, because this fucking beast coiling around in my blood won't leave me be!" Remus accents his words with a pounding fist into the brick of the hearth on the wall beside him. His back is tensed, shoulders drawn up in a bundle to the base of his neck like a loaded crossbow. "And now add to it that these fucking Death Eater pretenders, whoever the fuck they think they are, are trying to surge up from whatever depths they've dug, how am I supposed to react, Sirius?! How? Because all I know for this is fear, and fear to me is anger!"

Remus' hands are trembling when he finishes, his face flushed and his eyes tight. Sirius' throat is caught in a painful fist of a lump, and he wishes he could take Remus' exhaustion with more than just commiseration or reassurance.

"I'm afraid of it too, Remus, I was supposed to _be_ one of them," he says intensely, hearing the tremor in his words like frost on a window as he keeps his voice trained precariously just below a shout. Sirius rarely lets himself dwell on the concept of his childhood having been a grooming floor for his indoctrination; Gryffindor had been his one saving grace, keeping him from the poisonous mire that Regulus hadn't been able to avoid. Eldest child, promised son, heir of the name—he had dashed it all. Dashed it to save his sanity and any possibility of happiness not twisted through with toxicity. When he thinks so closely about it as he does now, it makes his head spin.

"For sixteen years I watched those bloody cowards hold meetings in my dining room, drink with my relatives, I was introduced to them before I even had my fucking magic as 'This is Sirius, you'll be _working together someday soon.'_ I want them _ruined,_ Remus. But I won't move to make that happen if it puts you in danger of anything—legal problems, physical risk, discovery?! Fucking hell, Remus, all it takes is one astute official in that fucking citadel of a headquarters noticing your jumpiness, divining that a moon is so close, and offering you a silver-plated teacup!" Sirius hears his voice has risen back to a shout, feels angry tears welling up along his lashes, _fucking tears, stop FUCKING CRYING,_ lets the sharp grey of his eyes sear into Remus' with incidental canine challenge. "You have insides telling you to be afraid of me leaving, fine, I wish it were easier for you, but I'm not going anywhere! There's nobody else in that equation besides me, I'm _yours!_ I love you more than I care to fucking love myself! I have to choke down the fear every moon that somebody will see you for what you are and take you away from me!" He swipes at his eyes angrily, furious at the salted wetness that comes away on the heels of his hands. "I can't live without you, Remus, I can't fucking do that!"

Remus doesn't rush forward to embrace him, hold him together, lull him with any stupid platitudes they both know would just be like candy floss in water. Sirius sniffles deeply, keeps wresting tracks of tears from his cheeks in the ramped-up silence weighing on both of their necks.

"I won't get discovered," Remus says roughly, the attempted softness in his voice frayed around its edges by his ebbing fury. 

"How do you _know that,"_ Sirius replies immediately, an intense hiss, staring at his feet as if they held answers. 

Remus is quiet for several hammering heartbeats, and the enchanted Canis Major on the grandfather clock whines faintly with something that sounds like impatience.

"I'm sorry," Remus murmurs. "It's still—hard for me to make sense of why I am...a lot of what I am." His eyes are level in a twinned gaze when Sirius finally looks up, and they tense with subtle grief. "Please don't cry, I'm so sorry," he whispers. His hands are flexing and relaxing in restless fists. 

"It's not your fault," Sirius says through a shuddering breath. "I mean—yes, you shouted, but I shouted back, and the tears are just my shit emotions doing what they do best. I'm not angry with you. Just generally a mess."

"You're not a mess," Remus says softly, the raw fatigue in his eyes giving way to a brief measure of tenderness. Sirius sniffs again and runs a hand down his face with a wry exhale of laughter. 

"Beg to differ, but thank you love."

They keep standing for a moment in the stretch of quiet acceptance and truce. Their arguments from day one have always been ephemeral but frantic flares, the distilled product of clashing personalities with just enough in common to grate like flint and iron when they smack against one another in conflict. It used to be thrilling—frankly near arousing to Sirius, especially in year seven when they had fought catastrophically about Sirius purposefully throwing a leading score on his Transfiguration N.E.W.T. so he didn't have to even pretend at excitement at acceptance into Auror training. These days arguments have become occasional stress tests of their bond, less exciting and more humbling. But even then, Sirius would always be the first to reconcile. Now is no different. 

Sirius extends one tired arm. "Come here."

Remus closes the short distance between them with a two steps and wends his arms around Sirius' waist, drawing him in tightly with a flex of ardor. Sirius clasps the broad, warm shoulders in his own arms and turns his face to rest in the curve of Remus' neck. They breathe together for a moment, slowing one another's pulses back down to marginal ease. 

"You have enough to worry about," Remus whispers, his voice traveling up like weak kettle steam through the near-febrile column of his neck pressed against Sirius' forehead. "Don't worry about me."

"Like you said earlier, instinct," Sirius replies with dry candor. "Can't turn it off, even if I wanted."

"You terrible berk," Remus' softened voice tinged with exhausted humor, adoration, striking Sirius at the core of his heart; Sirius pulls back to look him in the eye, curving a hand up to fit against the height of his jaw and thumb tenderly at the height of Remus' cheek. The late-afternoon Muggle sounds of the town outside the windows bustle along, blind to the muttering chaos of possibility in the unseen world running parallel to their own. He opens his mouth to say something bitingly witty, something wry, to jostle the tenuous calm around them as he so often does—shuffle it all up so one doesn't have to look at it so closely and discern the utter meaning of it all, _instinct,_ what a hard habit to break—when he's cut off by Remus catching him in a needy kiss. 

The unaddressed want of it tenses Sirius' hands hungrily where they sit, bunching up the fabric of Remus' jumper and pressing into his skin with gentle weight. Remus becomes so warm when a moon is right around the corner, hours away instead of days, radiating heat and immediacy from his core like a collapsing star. Remus wraps Sirius nearer, his insistent lips a pliant foil to the clasping, tautened nearness knit through the length of their waists drawn flush against each other. 

Sirius has machinations of lifting Remus swiftly to the bed, ready to muster the brief burst of strength needed to hoist the lithe pour of Remus' body aloft and through the several steps into their room, but he's halted with a gently-intoned breath leaping from his lungs when he feels the searing path of Remus' hands trace up the back of his shirt. The graceful fingers there paint across his spine like dancers, patterns of coaxing sweetness on the canvas of Sirius' pale skin. Sirius raises his arms up to let Remus remove his shirt in a swift, catching motion, only breaking their kiss for a moment to allow for the gap of divesting before returning. 

Sirius knits his own fingers into Remus' hair, reveling in the increase of intensity against his mouth when he tugs ever so gently. He feels heat pooling in the basin of his pelvis—a psychoanalyst's dream if there ever was one, he's sure, to be so predisposed to arousal after an argument—and presses his hips against Remus' thigh before Remus immediately shifts them to back Sirius into the wall beside the hearth. 

"I need this," Remus breathes, his voice raw, his eyes flashing in the slimmest ring of feral green around dilated pupils that further stokes Sirius' pleasure when he pulls back a fraction of an inch to speak, "right here, you, now." He licks his lips quickly, unconsciously, as his gaze flickers all across Sirius' face. "Please."

Hate as he might the terror of this curse, Sirius is ever weak to bend to Remus' desire for heated release. "Sofa," he says, and Remus takes him by the waist to turn them both to the couch behind them. He guides Sirius backwards, diving in again to kiss him with curving hunger, until the backs of Sirius' legs stop against the arm of the couch.

"Trousers off," Remus says, low in his throat, as he works fastidiously at Sirius' belt. Sirius moves his own fingers down to unbutton Remus' jeans, but Remus stops his wrist with one hand and catches Sirius’ bottom lip between his teeth sharply. _"Not_ mine yet."

Sirius closes his eyes and hisses out an eager oath when Remus wraps a hand around him, so warm and flexed with eagerness, _"Fuck,_ Moony," he repeats, his breath fluttering involuntarily like his eyelashes as he braces his arms just behind him so as not to tumble to the floor with shuddering pleasure. Remus twist his palm languidly across Sirius' cock, spreading the bead of moisture that had already shown at its head with slow purpose. He moves his lips to Sirius' collarbone and bites down lightly, causing Sirius to cant his hips forward in a perfect calculation of response with the rhythm of his steady, even strokes.

"I'm going to string you out so taught that you forget how to worry," Remus growls into the junction of Sirius' shoulder, "and then I'm going to fuck you so hard you forget how to _speak."_

Sirius is unable to summon words for a moment—the second half of Remus' plan already working well to its goal, apparently—for the rush of blooming warmth that beats through his pulse at Remus asserting his dominance with another rich twist of his hand. For all Sirius' inherent stubbornness and predisposition toward taking charge in many aspects, and as much as he loves being the one to make Remus pant and curse and cum first with teasing accuracy between the sheets, Remus taking the reins is a direct route to Sirius' reddest arousal. 

"Careful with all that surety," Sirius finally manages to say, looking down at Remus as he begins easing himself to his knees and sweeps Sirius' trousers and pants away to the side, "I won't last very long if you keep daaAHHH, _fuck,_ yes, oh—” Sirius bites down hard on his lip and bundles his right hand into Remus' hair again when he's guided succinctly into Remus' mouth. The unbelievable heat of Remus' tongue sweeps across his length in wet whorls for a blessed, suspended moment before Remus pulls back and kisses Sirius' left thigh possessively while his hand keeps stroking slowly—removal of intensity, sustaining, just enough to keep him hard and pulsing but not nearly enough to spill.

"I plan on doing this for a very long time," Remus murmurs dangerously. "Get comfortable."

"Merlin, Remus, please—” Sirius gasps around his words again as Remus drags a slow lick across him from base to tip. 

"I appreciate the courtesy, but I'm not taking suggestions," Remus growls, flexing his right hand where it rests on Sirius' lower back and kissing slowly across the pale skin of the hips before him as he continues to tease Sirius along. 

Time blends itself into a spaceless blur of sensation under Remus' ardent guidance, seconds and minutes bleeding through one another in the shockingly lovely thrill of touch. Sirius feels himself pulled toward and immediately held away from climax so many times he loses count, and when he finally feels like he might splinter under the maddening tete-a-tete, he feels Remus shift his focus and pull completely away from him. Sirius' eyes fly open and he looks down the length of his prone body, splayed in a long and desperate stretch now over half of the sofa with his hips still held firm on the armrest, a pleading groan almost slipping past his vocal cords. He sees Remus rising into a stand between his knees, undoing straining trousers deftly and not bothering to remove his jumper. 

"Say my name when you finish," Remus demands, his voice frayed and heady with primed need, and he leans himself forward to pull Sirius' body off the couch and press against his own through a rough kiss. Charmed slick in a spell of wandless magic and pressing into Sirius with barely-reined gentleness, Remus coaxes from him a string of sworn encouragement as they cross the steady threshold into long-awaited and breathless fucking. 

Sirius squeezes his knees around Remus' midsection, ankles crossed where they rest against his tailbone, pulling Remus close with each languid arch of his back that presses deep into Sirius. Remus' breath is hot on Sirius' skin where his forehead is balanced on the flushed and naked shoulder, strands of Sirius' hair sticking to his cheek; Remus' hands leave invisible tattoos of heat in their wake where he touches Sirius' body—one wrapped around Sirius' cock to bring him along on two fronts, the other roaming to clutch at his hip, his knee, his arm, his neck; Remus' length pulses warm and rhythmic at Sirius' core, bucking with building insistence. Surrounded by such depthless and searing presence, heavy and fevered to lick at the edges of his resolve, Sirius feels himself arriving at the cusp of his limits within minutes. 

"Remus," he gasps, his voice pillowed like a call girl with the desperate moan in its undertone, still couched in his darker baritone but undercut with feckless want, "I'm close, I— _fuck, there!"_

Sirius angles himself slightly, blindly seeking the feeling that had sparked through him with the last touch, Remus' hand moving on him quickly now, their rhythm building to a pace that threatens the most blessed sort of fracturing, _there,_ again, again, again—

His core tenses in one breath like a cresting wave and Remus lets out his own strangled exhalation of near arrival for the force of it around him, the backs of Sirius' eyelids in their clenched shut go white—

_"Say my name,"_ Remus repeats at Sirius' ear, the millisecond before it's done—as ecstasy crashes through the shores of his body, Sirius cries out the shattered syllables of Remus' name like a prayer to some long-forgotten god of warmth and summer.

—

The moon and their run pass without any event besides the expected. Sirius wakes the morning after covered with the detritus of the forest, scraped with dirt; he stares at his reflection in the bathroom mirror for a solid extra minute after crawling blearily from bed just before noon, cataloguing the disrepair with an unseeing gaze that he takes twice as long to wipe clean with frigid water before tying his hair up messily. He'd left Remus asleep in bed, chest rising and falling with slow labor—alive. Alright, despite the minor surface injuries. Safe, despite the fear inherent in bringing him home half-conscious at dawn.

It still destroys Sirius to watch the transformation transpire every month. He's sure it won't ever get any easier. 

The morning stretches out slowly, and Sirius lets himself play records at low volume to keep his mind from racketing out in madness but still let Remus sleep off his exhaustion—passed out, really; sound would probably not bother him at all, but still Sirius keeps quiet as possible. 

Morning turns to afternoon, and Sirius checks on Remus twice before the clock chimes just after three. Sirius smokes, he eats, he brews idle tea, he smokes some more. He tries to read, can't focus on the words, tries for a nap on the sofa, can’t quiet his mind enough to drift off. He would owl James if he had any idea what to do with him besides stare a wall.

Sirius peeks into the bedroom twice each hour that passes through the later day, four and five o’ clock pass with the hallowed proof of Remus at least tossing in his sleep to curl differently around himself on the mattress. Just before seven, Sirius has “Twenty Four Hours” on low-volume repeat from the overworn B-side he loves best to mope to as he sits beside the record player. Suddenly, he sits up at immediate attention when the bedroom door creaks open, revealing a haggard Remus stepping carefully into the bathroom without looking over at him. Sirius tries not to watch the half-closed bath door like too much of a guard dog; water runs for several minutes before turning off, and when Remus finally emerges he’s still wearing his flannel trousers but has a towel looped over his shoulders to catch drippings from damp, washed hair. He sits in front of Sirius without ceremony.

“Did it hurt you?” Remus asks, his eyes flicking over Sirius’ limbs in concern cataloguing.

“The branches did a number or two, but Padfoot kept ahead of it,” Sirius says gently.

“Good,” Remus says through a terse sigh. The record skips over to the next song without Sirius’s fastidious push to the turntable arm to repeat the track, baseline thrumming out along with its hissing accompaniment, accenting the silence between the two men.

“Are you going be okay?” Sirius’ voice is achingly gentle, and he ignites a cigarette for Remus without being asked. Remus’ jaw tightens, but he takes the light with quiet gratefulness and breathes in a long, slow pull.

“Something’s obviously in motion, politically, and I’ve accepted that we can’t quite…stop it, I suppose,” He finally says softly. Sirius watches him, unflinching—perhaps this is some sort of new maturity they’ve unwittingly come into after dealing with so much disaster, the ability to stare bullshit in the face with silent, resistant fury and discern how to deal with it from afar. “It’s going to be really very terrifying if— _when._ It gets worse. But I can get through that with you here. We’ll figure something out. We have some time yet, I think. We got through it once, we can get through it again.”

Sirius laces their fingers together and nods mutely, drawing on his cigarette and squeezing Remus' hand with preoccupied tenderness. They would be alright, he isn't worried about that at all. It's the general state of things he fears for, the balance of bad and worse that seems so ready to fall off-kilter. But to a dearer extent, he supposes Remus is the only part of the world that truly matters. So Sirius continues to let Joy Division filter in their slow dirge through the flat, smiles half-heartedly under Remus' knowing gaze, and hopes tomorrow keeps turning into tomorrow to delay the threat of reality ever longer. 

 

_—fin—_

**Author's Note:**

> Oof, this one kind of wrote itself. Fairly topical, isn't it? I need the upside-down-smiling emoji here. And the series wanted for another E story, didn't it? I think so. Hopefully this one fits the bill, political parallels included! Thanks again for reading, you all are lovely <3


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